Last Saturday, July 19th, our Tantur group visited Bethlehem. We began in Beit Sahour, a village adjacent to Bethlehem and the traditional location of the Shepherds’ Field where the angels announced Jesus’ birth. “Beit Sahour” means “house of whispering,” apparently because shepherds were notorious gossips. A beautiful Catholic church is built on a site where supposedly the shepherds’ field was located. It’s situated over a cave where it is thought the shepherds hung out — there are lots of caves all over this area, making the idea that Jesus was born in a cave quite plausible. It was a fun/touching moment to sing “Angels We Have Heard on High” on the very spot where these angels appeared.
We didn’t see it, but there is a Lutheran church in Beit Sahour. They have recently cooperated with other Christians in opening a community center that will provide a place for Palestinians to produce and sell their handmade arts and crafts.
The Shrine in the Church of the Nativity at the Place Where Jesus was Born
We ended our morning tour by visiting the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but I won’t say more just now because I believe I discussed that when we first visited there early in our Tantur stay.
What I want to talk about here has more to do with “shepherds” in the present. We also visited the Intercultural Center in Bethlehem, which is adjacent to and sponsored by Christmas Lutheran Church. We met with Dr. Nuha Khoury, who along with Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the church, has developed an amazing set of cultural ministries for the Palestinians in Bethlehem and beyond. One program seeks to preserve and revitalize the cultural identity of the Palestinian community by teaching and encouraging cultural expression, including sponsoring festivals, exhibitions, and concerts. They have founded “Dar al-Kalima College,” a two-year college designed to train people in a variety of creative and artistic fields. They offer a health and wellness center, and their fourth enterprise is the community center in Beit Sahour I mentioned above. They describe these ministries as “a consortium of Lutheran-based, ecumenically-oriented institutions serving the whole Palestinian community, with an emphasis on children, youth, women, and the elderly through unique programs that are contextual and holistic in nature.” I can’t tell you how proud and touched I felt to hear about these programs coming out of our sister Lutheran church, where they are living out their faith by seeking to provide authentic hope in a community that deeply needs such encouragement.
By the way, beneath the craft shop of this center is a first century cave. (No, they don’t claim Jesus was born there in the Lutheran church!) But this cave was obviously a home — a door on one side, one main room, and a courtyard in front of the house. Probably the family lived and slept in that one room, and their animals were brought into the courtyard at night. For Joseph and Mary “no room in the inn” may have meant that friends or relatives had no space in the room where the family slept, so they had to put them up in the courtyard with the animals.
I can testify to the quality of their artistic program, for a number of us went to a musical concert in their auditorium on Monday night, July 21st. The songs and explanations were in Arabic — so I can’t tell you much about them — but the music was beautiful. The combo included an oud (a traditional Middle Eastern instrument like a lute or mandolin), flute, piano, cello, bass guitar, and drums. The music struck me as a cross between Middle Eastern music and jazz. The evening was an experience of what the Intercultural Center in Bethlehem is trying to accomplish — and an experience of how music can be an international language.
